Vincent van Gogh: art genius, mental health tragic.

The Museum Square in Amsterdam is the key place in the Dutch capital regard­ing art and culture, higlighting the Rijks­museum and Stedelijk Museum, the Concert­ge­bouw and the Van Gogh Museum.

van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

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Museum Square, Amsterdam

Van Gogh Museum (L) and the Rijksmuseum (R), 

Wiki

Three storeys of art on display

Amsterdamtips.com

De­d­icated to the life and works of Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) and his cont­em­poraries, this is one of the most famous museums in Europe. Housed across 2 adjoining buildings, most of the 200 paintings and 400 drawings by the legendary artist are in the site designed by Dut­ch arch­itect Gerrit Rietveld (d1964), part of the modern De Stijl art move­ment. This first section of the museum was opened in 1973.

In 1999 the museum opened the new Exhibition Wing, designed by Japan­ese archit­ect Kur­ok­awa Kisho. Connected by an entr­ance hall, and used for major temporary exhibitions, this wing had an open de­sign that used geomet­r­ical forms and allowed natural light into the exhibition space. Kurokawa buried most of his building, connecting it with the old museum through an underground passage, to minimise its visual im­pact on the environment. But note the peculiar curved roof that continued to attract attention.

The core of the collection came from Theo van Gogh, Vincent’s  very patient young­er brother. It remained in the family until 1962, when with the Dutch government help, the artist’s nephew Vincent van Gogh (1890–1978), donated the collection to the Vincent van Gogh Found­at­ion. Then nephew Vincent, founder of Van Gogh Museum gave the collect­ion to the museum on a permanent loan.

In 2014, construction began on a new entrance hall in Museum Square. The new wing has a basement below and two floors above, built in the open space adjacent to the main museum building. The transpar­ent en­tr­ance hall was built to allow its very light appearance. The curv­ed glass panels collab­orated with the vertical glass fins, which in turn worked together with the building’s steel structure. Inside, the glass staircase is supported by glass arches. The new entrance build­ing is the largest glass structure in the nation.

The museum has since added works acqu­ired via purchase and donat­ion. It fea­tured a research library that was opened to the pu­blic, and an aud­it­or­ium for public lectures and films about van Gogh. The 2nd floor featured temporary exhibitions and the top floor showcased Imp­res­sionist and Postimpressionist works by van Gogh’s cont­emp­­or­aries: works by C19th Fr­en­ch scul­ptor, Auguste Rodin, and pain­t­ings by Paul Gaug­uin, Éd­ouard Manet, Claude Mo­net, Émile Bern­ard, Mary Cassatt and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

The biggest collection of Van Gogh’s works in the world, it is home to both the iconic Self-portrait (1888) and Sunflowers (1889), as well as The Painter of Sunflowers (1888), a Paul Gauguin portrait of Van Gogh that combines the two works.

Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat, 1887

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

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In the troubled genius’ expressive paintings and drawings, learn about Van Gogh’s personal, often difficult history - single, lonely, never sold a single painting, relied on his brother for money. The exhibit­ions include c700 of the artist’s letters, giving a first-hand look in­to his state of mind, and his brother's.

Vincent van Gogh then lived in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris. He was feeling opt­im­ist­ic and made some of his famous master­pieces, including Wheatfield with Crows, Doc­tor Paul Gachet and The Church of Auvers-sur-Oise. He was highly productive, often creat­ing more than a painting a day, while experimenting with new approaches to colour, brushwork, formats and subjects. This cruc­ial final phase in van Gogh’s career is in the Van Gogh in Auv­ers: His Final Months exhibition. The English-French-Dutch catalogue incl­ud­es the 5 paintings that Van Gogh created in Auvers in his fin­al mon­ths. His­t­orical photo­graphs and maps show the pl­ac­es where he worked and found his inspiration, finding things of beaut­y to paint around the town.

But inspiring as his new surroundings were, his loneliness and dep­ression mounted. Dr Paul Gachet was a doctor with whom van Gogh lived, after he was released after a year in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence’s mental asylum. Gachet cared for Van Gogh till the end, showing how Van Gogh first experim­ented with etching, while revealing his special connection with Dr Gachet. Then the artist took his own life in July 1890. 

Portrait of Dr. Gachet,

by van Gogh, 1890. Wiki

auction at Christie's NY 1990, for US$82.5 million 

Thankfully he left behind a fine body of work, so this exhibition is a great opportunity to see 50+ paintings and 30 draw­ings by van Gogh that have never before been shown together. It feat­ures spec­ial loans from private collections and museums around the world, and an audio guide is available in 11 languages. But remember to book early because 1.5 million visitors arrive here each year!

In a 3-part video series called Van Gogh Ex­perts Explain: His Final Months, cur­ators and resear­chers talk about the multitude of works Van Gogh produced, what inspired him and how he felt then.